Dr Nima Heirati

Senior Lecturer in Marketing and Deputy Head of Department

+44 (0)1483 682016

n.heirati@surrey.ac.uk

12 MS 03

Student Feedback & Consultation Hours: Available upon request on Mondays

Academic and research departments

Department of Marketing, Surrey Business School, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences.

About

Biography

Dr Nima Heirati is a Senior Lecturer in Marketing at Surrey Business School, University of Surrey. Previously, he held an academic appointment at Queen Mary University of London and Newcastle University Business School. He has a BSc in Mechanical Engineering and an MBA in Business Administration. He obtained his PhD in Strategic Marketing from the University of Tasmania. Before joining academia, Dr Heirati held senior positions as the marketing manager and business development manager at several Middle-Eastern manufacturing firms.

His research relates predominantly to the field of Innovation Strategy, Service Marketing, and Business Relationships with the special focus on the challenges involved in business relationships (B2B), service infusion strategies (B2B), and the dark side of customer participation (B2C). His work has been published in the Journal of Service Research, Industrial Marketing Management, Journal of Business Research, Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Journal of Business and Industrial Marketing, and Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services. He is on the Editorial Board of Industrial Marketing Management, Service Business, and Australasian Marketing Journal. Nima has taught and teaches courses in Marketing Strategy, Services Marketing, Digital Marketing, and International Marketing on Bachelor and Master levels and Research Method on the PhD Level.

Areas of specialism

Service Marketing; Customer Experience; Business relationships ; Service innovation and servitization; Psychological implications of Artificial Intelligence ; Business model innovation

University roles and responsibilities

Deputy Head of Department

Previous roles

Senior Lecturer in Marketing

Queen Mary University of London

Lecturer in Marketing

Newcastle University

Affiliations and memberships

The Association of Key Account Management

Academic Advisory Board

Research

Research interests

Service Marketing

Customer participation (value co-creation)
Customer experience with smart products/services
Psychological implications of Artificial Intelligence and technology usage

Business-to-Business Marketing

Service innovation and servitization
Business model innovation
Business relationships and account management

PhD Supervision

I welcome outstanding prospective PhD students who would like to work on areas of research that align with my research interests. For an informal conversation, please send your resume and a research proposal (3000 words excluding references) that outlines the research idea & rationale, research objectives, theoretical contributions, methods, and possible data sources) to n.heirati@surrey.ac.uk.

Supervision

Postgraduate research supervision

I welcome outstanding prospective PhD students who would like to work on areas of research that align with my research interests (please see the research tab for my areas of interest). For an informal conversation, please send your resume and a research proposal (3000 words excluding references) that outlines the research idea & rationale, research objectives, theoretical contributions, methods, and possible data sources) to n.heirati@surrey.ac.uk.

Current Doctoral Students

Heer Paleja (University of Surrey, 2023 - ). Topic: Psychological implications of artificial intelligence.

PhD Supervision Completions

Dr Asheeabee R Shaheen Hosany (University of Surrey, England, 2020 – 2022). Topic: Children influence, sustainability, resource scarcity, and family consumption.
Dr Yumeng Zhang (Queen Mary University of London, 2017 – 2022). Topic: Dark side effect contagion in business relationships.
Dr Julija Dzenkovska (Newcastle University, 2014 – 2019). Topic: Customer experience quality.
Dr Mohammad Ali Bahreini (Tehran University - Iran, 2016 – 2018). Topic: Business relationships between technology-intensive new ventures and incumbents.
Dr Vida Siahtiri (University of Tasmania - Australia, 2012-2014). Topic: Service solution provision in PSFs.

Teaching

My teaching philosophy can be summarised in one of Plutarchus’s quotes over two thousand years ago: “The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be ignited.” Students will be ignited and become self-conscious learners when they find themselves in a motivational learning environment and enjoy creative learning approaches. I have taught large (200+), medium, and small groups in form of lectures and seminars in the UK, Australia, and Iran on undergraduate (UG), postgraduate (PG, incl. MBA), and doctoral levels.

In the University of surrey, I am teaching:

UG: Marketing Strategy
PG: Services Marketing, Marketing Research
PhD Workshop: Analysis of Complex Models - Application of Structural Equation Modelling

Publications

Heirati, N., Leischnig, A., & Henneberg, S.C. (2023) Organization Architecture Configurations for Successful Servitization, Journal of Service Research, Forthcoming.

Despite the growing importance of servitization as a source of competitiveness for manufacturers, limited knowledge exists about organizational issues of servitization. Drawing on transaction cost economics theory and a configuration theoretical perspective, our study illuminates different organization architectures for servitization and how firms align such architectures with servitization approaches to achieve high financial performance. We analyze qualitative data based on interviews with 22 managers and quantitative data from a survey of 161 equipment manufacturers. The results indicate that manufacturers mostly opt for one of three organization architectures for servitization: internal product business unit, internal specialized service business unit, or external service provider. In addition, they reveal equifinal configurations of servitization characteristics to achieve high financial performance for each organization architecture. The internal specialized service business unit turns out as a flexible organization architecture to successfully provide smoothing, adapting, and substituting services. The use of an external service provider is less suited for the provision of adapting and substituting services, which require more knowledge specialization and coordination. All three organization architectures can be used to provide smoothing services. In summary, the results may serve as decision-making templates for aligning organization architecture, offering characteristics, and service provider integration to pursue servitization successfully.

N Heirati, N., Sok, P., Leischnig, A., Henneberg, S. (2023) Configuring managerial ties to leverage innovation approaches, 6th IMM Summit.

N Heirati, N., Thronton, S., Leischnig, A., Henneberg, S. (2022) Successful configurations of servitization, organizational characteristics, and environmental characteristics to achieve high financial performance, 12th SERVSIG Conference.

Heirati, N., Kim, B., Wang, L., Kim, Y. R. (2022) Examining consumer attitudes towards high street mobile apps: The role of gamification to increase consumers’ adoption and engagement, 12th SERVSIG Conference.

Zhang, Y., Leischnig, A., Heirati, N., & Henneberg, S. C. (2021) Dark-side-effect contagion in business relationships. Journal of Business Research, 130, 260-270.

Zaki, M., McLeay, F., Henneberg, H., Heirati, N., Leischnig, A. (2021) How to create a digitalisation strategy that works, Cambridge Service Alliance, University of Cambridge.

Blut, M., Heirati, N., & Schoefer, K. (2020) The dark side of customer participation: when customer participation in service co-development leads to role stress. Journal of Service Research, 23(2), 156-173.

Siahtiri, V., Heirati, N., & O'Cass, A. (2020) Unlocking solution provision competence in knowledge-intensive business service firms. Industrial Marketing Management, 87, 117-127.

Henneberg H., Zaki M., Ismail M., Misus G., Leischnig A., Heirati N. (2020) Driving business model transformation: How ready is your digital thread?, Cambridge Service Alliance, University of Cambridge.

Heirati, N., Henneberg, S. C., Richter, A., & Harste, R. (2019) Differential importance of social and economic determinants of relationship performance in professional services. Industrial Marketing Management, 76, 23-35.

Heirati, N., & Siahtiri, V. (2019) Driving service innovativeness via collaboration with customers and suppliers: Evidence from business-to-business services. Industrial Marketing Management, 78, 6-16.

Schoefer, K., Wäppling, A., Heirati, N., & Blut, M. (2019) The moderating effect of cultural value orientations on behavioral responses to dissatisfactory service experiences. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 48, 247-256.

Zarj, M., Dehkordi, A., Heirati, N., & Meigounpoory, M. (2019) The evolution of business relationships between technology-intensive new ventures and incumbents during the new product development process. International Journal of Innovation Management, 23(06), 1950052.

Heirati, N., Henneberg, S., Leischnig, A. (2019) Financial performance of service infusion: Equifinal constellations of organisational design, product characteristics, and service infusion approaches, Spring Servitization Conference, 179-187.

Heirati, N., O’Cass, A., & Sok, P. (2017) Identifying the resource conditions that maximize the relationship between ambidexterity and new product performance. Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, 32(8), 1038-1050.

Dzenkovska, J., Lemke, F., Schoefer, K., Heirati, N. (2017) Customer Experience Quality: Boundaries, Measurement and Management, Frontiers in Service.

Heirati, N., O'Cass, A., Schoefer, K., & Siahtiri, V. (2016) Do professional service firms benefit from customer and supplier collaborations in competitive, turbulent environments?. Industrial Marketing Management, 55, 50-58.

Dzenkovska, J., Heirati, N., Lemke, F., Schoefe, K. (2016) Customer Experience Quality: Preliminary Inquiry Using Repertory Grid Technique, International Colloquium on Relationship Marketing (ICRM).

Heirati, N., & O’Cass, A. (2016) Supporting new product commercialization through managerial social ties and market knowledge development in an emerging economy. Asia Pacific Journal of Management, 33(2), 411-433.

O'Cass, A., & Heirati, N. (2015) Mastering the complementarity between marketing mix, brand management, customer relationship management capabilities to enhance new product performance. Journal of Business and Industrial Marketing, 30(1), 60-71.

O'Cass, A., Heirati, N., & Ngo, L. V. (2014) Achieving new product success via the synchronization of exploration and exploitation across multiple levels and functional areas. Industrial Marketing Management, 43(5), 862-872.

Heirati, N., O'Cass, A., & Ngo, L. V. (2013) The contingent value of marketing and social networking capabilities in firm performance. Journal of Strategic Marketing, 21(1), 82-98.

O’Cass, A., Ngo, L. V., & Heirati, N. (2012) Examining market entry mode strategies via resource-based and institutional influences: Empirical evidence from a region-within-country economy context. Australasian Marketing Journal, 20(3), 224-233.